Deals of the day-Mergers and acquisitions

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

June 7 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported by 1200 GMT on Thursday: ** Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Corp said it may have no choice but to abandon a $6.1 billion merger with Xerox Corp if there is no progress in talks with the U.S. firm’s new board for about half a year. ** U.S. insurer AmTrust Financial Services Inc agreed to be acquired by a group of investors for a sweetened deal value of $2.95 billion, that helped secure the support of dissenting shareholder Carl Icahn. ** Botswana Diamonds wants to buy liquidated BCL Mine’s shares in a diamonds exploration joint venture project, its managing director said. ** Ford plans to close its Blanquefort gearbox plant in southwestern France if no buyer can be found for the site, which employs 900 workers, the U.S. carmaker said. ** Zhejiang Geely Holding Group and Tencent Holdings Ltd have won a bid to acquire a 49-percent stake in a subsidiary of state-owned China Railway Corp, Geely said. ** Vienna Insurance Group said it bought German peer Gothaer Finanzholding AG’s Polish unit. ** Russia’s second-largest lender VTB is interested in buying smaller rival Vozrozhdenie bank and could complete a deal in the third quarter, VTB Chief Executive Officer Andrei Kostin said. ** Johnson & Johnson said on Wednesday that Fortive Corp had offered to buy its medical sterilization unit for about $2.7 billion in cash. ** Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has acquired a small stake in Allergan Plc at a time when the drugmaker is under pressure from other activist shareholders, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

** Delivery Hero, a German online food delivery platform, is open for possible takeovers, Chief Executive Officer Niklas Ostberg said. ** Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group said it has built up a 19.9 percent interest in small iron ore miner Atlas Iron Ltd, giving it a large enough stake to block a takeover of Atlas by Mineral Resources Ltd. (Compiled by Nikhil Subba in Bengaluru)